


When You Kissed and Smiled at Me

by lotherington



Series: Long Ago and Far Away [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Historical, M/M, WWII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 18:57:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotherington/pseuds/lotherington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>‘So that’s what you do, then? All that mad running about and nearly poisoning yourself and serial killers... that’s your life, is it?’</i> </p>
<p>WWII AU. October, 1937. Sherlock and John revel in the successful conclusion of their first case together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Kissed and Smiled at Me

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4JQ_lMSEvE). This update and the next one or two will focus around the development of John and Sherlock's relationship in the late 1930s - once again, sorry for skipping about in the timeline!

_October, 1937_

‘Where on earth do you imagine you’re going to find an open fish and chip shop at two o’clock in the morning?’ John asked, pulling his coat around himself tightly, walking quicker than he would normally to keep pace with Sherlock as they strode across Westminster Bridge.

‘I don’t imagine I’m going to find an open fish and chip shop at two in the morning,’ Sherlock replied, turning to grin at John, the sharp breeze off the river ruffling his hair. He held his hat in his hand.

‘Then for God’s sake why are we even trying to go for fish and chips?’ John grabbed hold of his hat at a sudden gust of wind.

‘Chap in Lambeth who owns a chip shop owes me a favour,’ Sherlock said with a wide grin, jogging backwards as they reached the end of the bridge, the street lamps giving off just enough light to make out his expression. ‘You might even get a pickled onion if you’re lucky.’ He lifted his eyebrows and ran down the stairs, jumping off the third from the bottom and landing on his feet with an echoing smack.

‘I never thought you’d be one for such base pleasure as pickled onions,’ John called as he followed down the stairs at a more sedate pace, his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face.

‘There’s an awful lot you’d be surprised to learn about me,’ Sherlock said quietly once John reached the bottom of the stairs, looming in close to him. ‘How’s the hand?’

John glanced down at his left hand, the one he’d used to knock a serial killer unconscious not an hour ago. He flexed his fingers, turning his hand towards the lamplight. The knuckles were reddened and slightly swollen. ‘Not broken,’ he replied, smirking as he looked at his damaged skin.

‘I _could_ have managed without you, you know.’ They started walking again, along the bank.

John snorted, amused. ‘Oh yes, I’m sure. Only if I hadn’t have found you at the eleventh hour, you may actually have swallowed that pill, poisoned yourself, asphyxiated on your own vomit and died, and the world would be down its only consulting detective, and then where would we be?’

‘I wouldn’t have _died_ ,’ Sherlock muttered as they turned onto a residential street. ‘I chose correctly.’

‘You guessed.’

‘I _chose_ \--’

‘You _guessed_. It was pure chance, and you know it.’

Sherlock sniffed and drew himself up, kicking at a pile of fallen leaves on the ground. They continued to walk down the quiet street, the sound of their shoes ringing across the road, echoing off the tall houses on either side.

‘So that’s what you do, then?’ John asked after a few moments of silence. ‘All that mad running about and nearly poisoning yourself and serial killers... that’s your life, is it?’

‘Don’t be fooled. It’s not half as exciting as that most of the time.’

‘You really are quite a man.’

Sherlock stopped still and stared at John, his expression wary. ‘You think so?’

‘After that?’ John shook his head, smiling widely. ‘You’re something else entirely, Sherlock Holmes.’

Sherlock coughed. ‘Yes, well, I did tell you.’ He strode off again, his strides long. John laughed softly to himself and jogged to catch up, easily matching Sherlock’s pace once they were side by side again. 

‘You don’t get told that sort of thing very often, do you?’

‘Clever deduction,’ Sherlock said with a sneer, turning onto a narrower street.

***

Three quarters of an hour later, Sherlock and John were wandering slowly down the South Bank, both eating fish and chips from newspaper with their fingers. The moon reflected on the river and the city was quiet and still.

‘We’re miles from my flat,’ John said, licking the grease and salt off his fingers.

‘No further than Bart’s,’ Sherlock replied. ‘Just somewhat more south, approximately two minutes within your normal journey time from the hospital.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I know every street in London.’ Sherlock broke off a bit of fish and popped it into his mouth.

‘Of course you do.’ John shook his head and laughed. ‘You’re extraordinary,’ he said, gazing at Sherlock.

Sherlock glanced at John out of the corner of his eye, looking quickly over each shoulder before he pushed John against the trunk of a nearby tree and pressed their lips together.

‘Sherlock--’ John gasped when Sherlock bit at his lower lip, licking into his mouth. ‘Mm, Sherlock, no, we’ll be seen, we’ll be seen--’

‘It’s quarter past three,’ Sherlock murmured, his voice throaty. He kissed John, hard and chaste once more before pulling away, looking over his shoulder again.

‘You bloody idiot,’ John hissed, shoving Sherlock’s shoulder and doing his best to look indignant. They caught each other’s eye and managed to remain straight-faced for less than five seconds before bursting into peals of raucous laughter, the sound carrying over the river and into the night.

***

‘This isn’t how this works, you know,’ John murmured, running his index finger down the curve of Sherlock’s jaw, visible in the dim light from the window as the sun just started to creep over the city. ‘You don’t come back for one night and stay for the weekend. You don’t come and find me at work and drag me round London with you solving crimes.’

The springs in John’s mattress groaned as Sherlock moved onto his side, playing with John’s chest hair. It was just past five in the morning.

‘ _A_ crime,’ he said. ‘Singular. Would you rather I went?’

‘No.’ John leant in and kissed Sherlock. ‘No. It’s just... not the done thing, is it?’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever done _the done thing_ in my life,’ Sherlock said, raising one eyebrow lazily, reaching over John to pull his pack of cigarettes off the nightstand.

John smiled, kissing Sherlock’s forehead, then down the bridge of his nose. ‘That I can believe,’ he said, opening the drawer of the bedside table and taking the matches out. He struck one and held it to the tip of the cigarette that rested between Sherlock’s lips. ‘I can’t believe I let you keep me up all night before an early shift, however.’

Laughing, Sherlock wound an arm around John, breathing a lungful of smoke out towards the ceiling. ‘I hope no-one will suffer from your being sleep deprived,’ he said, squeezing John’s waist. 

‘I’ll have you know, Mr. Holmes, that I’m a very competent doctor, whether I’m operating on ten hours’ sleep or none.’

‘Oh, I’m sure,’ Sherlock murmured, brushing his soft, full lips against John’s, licking his way into John’s mouth, his own slackened into a grin.

‘You taste revolting,’ John mumbled against Sherlock’s lips, laughing loudly and pushing Sherlock away when he shoved his tongue deeper. ‘Hideous creature.’

Sherlock’s shoulders shook with laughter as he rolled onto his back again, drawing John closer, continuing to smoke. John rested his head on Sherlock’s chest, tracing idle patterns on Sherlock’s abdomen with his index finger.

‘Do you want to sleep here?’ John asked, glancing up at Sherlock’s face. ‘I’m going to have to get ready to leave in a moment.’

‘Mmm, that would be nice.’ Sherlock closed his eyes and snorted smoke through his nose, dragon-like.

‘Just don’t make any noise. And don’t let anyone see you go when you do, and leave the key under the mat.’

Mouth quirking up into a wry smile, Sherlock squeezed John tightly. ‘I’ve not been arrested for gross indecency yet. I do know how to be discreet.’

‘I never said you didn’t. My landlady’s a nosy old bat, though.’

Sherlock stubbed his cigarette out in a saucer John had put on the bedside table for the purpose and tugged the sheets over his head, grinning wickedly as he moved down John’s body. ‘I wonder what she’ll have to say when I make you moan my name,’ he said, kissing the base of John’s semi-erect cock.

‘God, Sherlock, you can’t, I haven’t the time,’ John breathed, though his toes curled and his bruised hand hovered just above Sherlock’s head, outside the sheets.

‘I’ll lay your clothes out and prepare your bag whilst you’re in the bath; I can deduce what you need,’ Sherlock muttered against John’s skin, wrapping his hand around John’s arousal and stroking firmly, his pink tongue darting in between his fingers. 

‘You’ll be wanting me to put a ring on your finger next-- _ah_!’ John gripped tightly onto the pillow underneath his head, clenching his teeth as Sherlock’s lips did something unexpected but utterly delightful to the head of his cock.

‘Nonsense,’ Sherlock said before blowing cool air onto John’s overheated flesh, then sinking down slowly, tongue fluttering against the underside.

‘Oh... Oh, Sherlock, there really isn’t time--’ John gasped even as his thighs trembled and his breathing quickened, dampness prickling between his shoulder blades and at his temples. Sherlock hummed, moving back up then down again, gathering pace until the sheet bobbed up and down over John’s crotch in a fast rhythm.

Fast losing patience with not being able to see, John tore the sheet away from Sherlock’s head, arching his back into the sensation. ‘ _Christ_ ,’ he gasped at the sight, throwing one thigh over Sherlock’s shoulder and biting his own fist as he stared down. Sherlock’s eyes were dark, sharp cheeks flushed pink, lips and chin covered in spit, as was John’s cock. The noises coming from his throat as he moved up and down were obscene. 

Reaching up, Sherlock grabbed the hand that John currently had clenched around one of the pillows and tugged it into his hair, letting his jaw fall slightly open as he looked up at John, eyes trusting.

‘Bloody hell, on the floor, on your knees,’ John whispered, easing Sherlock up, mouths and teeth colliding in a movement that didn’t resemble a kiss at all as Sherlock slid off the bed and onto his knees. ‘God, you’re--’ John bent and licked his way past Sherlock’s lips, his fingers tightening in Sherlock’s hair before he straightened up again. ‘Please,’ he murmured, thumb brushing the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. ‘Please.’

‘Take what you want,’ Sherlock whispered, breathing across the head of John’s cock again, his eyes alight with amusement as he stared up at John. He leant in a little more, following the gentle tug that John made on his hair, swallowing around John’s prick again.

Hissing a breath in through his teeth, John’s face clenched as he pulled Sherlock backwards by his hair, then forwards and down again, groaning at the slight choking noise Sherlock made in his throat.

‘Good God, I really shouldn’t, oh, Sherlock, I--’

As John thrust into his mouth, pace increasing with each second that passed, Sherlock wrapped his right hand around himself, moaning at the feel of it.

‘Sh-Sherlock you might want to stop that now or I’m going to come off in your mouth,’ John murmured frantically, his grip on Sherlock’s hair bordering on painful until one of his hands flew out to grab hold of the bedside table, sending the saucer with the cigarette ends in it flying.

Sherlock looked up at John and tightened his lips, sucking harder.

‘ _Sherlock_ ,’ John gasped as he climaxed, toes curling, knuckles whitening even through the bruises as he spilt his release into Sherlock’s mouth, a high-pitched moan escaping under his breath. ‘Sherlock, Sherlock, Sherlock, _Christ_...’

When John had finished, Sherlock eased his mouth away, working his jaw from side to side before pillowing his head on John’s thigh, pulling desperately at his cock. ‘Go on,’ John murmured, dipping just the tips of his index and middle fingers inside Sherlock’s mouth, stroking Sherlock’s jaw with his thumb. John’s chest heaved up and down as he caught his breath, watching Sherlock with half-lidded eyes.

‘Don’t you start work in an hour?’ Sherlock said, arm moving furiously, laughing when John’s eyes widened. 

‘Oh God,’ John groaned, collapsing onto his back. ‘I’m incapable of doing anything after that.’

‘Go and-- _mm_ \-- go and get in the bath.’ Sherlock tightened his fist and closed his eyes at the heightened sensation, getting unsteadily to his feet and sprawling on top of John. ‘But if you feel you can’t manage that, give me a hand and accept the fact that you’re late as it is.’

‘Come here,’ John muttered, wrapping his left hand around Sherlock’s right, tightening his fist on every upward stroke. ‘Kiss me.’

‘Jaw’s sore.’ Sherlock kissed him anyway, moaning and gasping quietly into John’s mouth as John’s sure, dexterous fingers concentrated on the head of Sherlock’s prick, smearing the few drops of fluid that leaked out around and just under the head. ‘God, John, I--’

Nibbling at Sherlock’s bottom lip, John pinched one of Sherlock’s nipples between his thumb and forefinger, moving his hand so quickly it was almost a blur, designed to bring Sherlock hurtling into his climax.

‘John, _John_ ,’ Sherlock whimpered, writhing on the bed as his release shot across his stomach and chest. ‘John, oh, enough, enough...’

‘Now I really do need to get in the bath,’ John said, kissing Sherlock quickly before running towards the bathroom, the roaring sound of water pouring out of the taps mingling pleasantly with the dawn chorus outside the window and Sherlock’s laboured breathing.

***

Late that afternoon, John finally made it through the shared front door of the building his flat was in after what would have been an exhausting shift even if he wasn’t operating on no sleep at all. Mouth opening wide in a huge yawn, he locked the front door from the inside and was just about to make his way up the creaky staircase when the telephone rang on its table in the hallway.

Muttering under his breath, John picked it up.

‘John Watson speaking.’

‘There’s been a murder. Vauxhaull Arches, sounds interesting from what Lestrade said. He wants me there to-night. You’ll come?’

John leant against the wall and smiled, pulling his hat off his head.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. Whenever you like. Wherever you like.’

‘Good. Good. Vauxhall Station, then, eight o’clock. Make sure you strap your hand up. Could be dangerous.’

And with that, the line went dead on Sherlock’s end.


End file.
